Stuart connected home presentation 18 oct 2011

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There are a huge number of devices and all sorts of connected ac6vity in today’s digital home. The role of Essen6al Research is to understand the consumer – and par6cularly their needs, both ra6onal and emo6onal, their a?tudes, their idiosyncrasies, and how their behaviour is aﬀected by their feelings about technology and the circumstances in which they consume it. 2

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First we start by measuring and observing what’s happening and who’s doing what. This is the rela6vely easy bit, but it’s important because so much received wisdom is wrong, so many strategies are based on an inaccurate assump6on that our target audience will do the same sort of stuﬀ that we do – or soon will. It’s certainly true that more and more mainstream audiences are embracing digital media and technology. Our own tracking data give us a snapshot of what is happening in an average week… 3

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But what on Earth does it all mean? For consumers? For you? For content creators, technology manufacturers, designers, adver6sers? 10

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There are a thousand themes we could explore. But for the sake of brevity I’m going to focus on the following 3 areas, all of which have fascinated me and many of my colleagues for over a decade. 11

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Let’s start with counter-­‐convergence. What do we mean by this? 12

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First we have to rewind 15 years to 1996. (Chris Evans R1 show, Gazza’s goal vs Scotland in Euro 96, The OJ Simpson trial, and the divorce of Charles & Diana.) 13

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Back then, you may have had these devices at home – but each had a very dis6nct role. We had a clear idea about the purpose of each type of device. 14

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The popular percep6on is that convergence then happened, and all our devices morphed into one. But what we’ve seen over the past decade and more is that while technology may have converged, the circumstances in which it is consumed, and the values that consumers a_ach (either consciously or sub-­‐consciously) to diﬀerent screens and spaces in the home, mean that only a fool would try to deliver exactly the same experience to consumers through their TV screen, their PC screen, their handheld screen, or a tablet screen. 15

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Rather, successful cross-­‐plaborm thinking means understanding, and being sympathe6c to, the unique values of the diﬀerent types of screen (or consump6on mode); understanding why one type of experience works well on one screen, while a diﬀerent type of experience works on another. This ma_ers hugely for content creators (whether broadcasters, publishers or adver6sers) and it ma_ers for those who create the devices, gateways and interfaces through which the content is consumed. Yet all too ofen we see hideously misconceived concepts, or execu6ons of a concept, that fail to take account of these fundamentals. 16

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We could talk all day about the prac6cal implica6ons of this. But for now I’ll focus on two: Behavioural fragmenta6on and the enduring values of the living room screen. 18

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One of the most common ques6ons we are asked is ‘where shall we invest?’. Should we start building mobile apps instead of websites? Should we be targe6ng people when they’re out and about, rather than si?ng at home on a PC? Or: if social media is shifing to mobile, how should this change what we do there? To answer this, you have to go back again to the core values of the diﬀerent screens. 19

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It’s clear that Facebook already gets this. The PC internet version of Facebook is a more long-­‐form version. It’s a hub for all ac6vity, and it’s certainly the place where users expect to compose longer messages and to manage their account. By comparison, the mobile app is designed to facilitate quicker, more frequent bursts of ac6vity and has evolved to make the most of loca6on-­‐based status updates. It’s pared down and designed to help you catch up with most recent ac6vity. And now there’s an iPad version which embraces the dis6nct values of the iPad – it’s more immersive, it provides for easier sharing of mul6media content, it’s visually striking. 20

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Retail behaviour is evolving along similar lines. When you ask audiences directly, they typically expect to do more of the same stuﬀ on a new screen (it’s the old Henry Ford ‘faster horses’ adage) but experience with smartphones has shown that as a device assumes its own clear iden6ty and values, exis6ng behaviours evolve and manifest themselves in interes6ng new ways. (From PC ac6vity: price comparison, detail, research) to smartphone behaviour (coupons, POS, loca6on-­‐based communica6on and oﬀers). Now, by understanding what makes the tablet screen unique, savvy retail brands are developing services that play to the tablet’s strengths. Growth in use of tablets will surely mean the emergence of a whole new type of retail behaviour. But what of educa6on, or health, or the wri_en word? It all comes back to understanding the core values of the screens and what makes each of them dis6nct. 21

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The screen with arguably the most enduring values is the living room screen. It doesn’t really ma_er if the TV screen has a hard drive, a return path, a new input device. What ma_ers is that it’s a screen in the living room, consumed while people are si?ng on their sofas in a par6cular mode of consump6on. With the advent of IPTV and connected TV services, it’s temp6ng to talk very excitedly to consumers using terms like ‘internet enabled’ or ‘surﬁng’ or to tell them that they can connect to their Facebook friends and Twi_er followers through their TV screen. Unfortunately this scares the shit out of them. Why? As our ethnographic work in livings rooms has constantly shown, the living room is a place for real (rather than virtual) social networks, it’s a safe place where there are no prying fraudsters or paedophiles, and where technology does not crash or require a plugin or an an6virus update. Any marketers who challenge this sense of living room security by using words like “internet” do so at their peril. But one thing is for sure. Mainstream audiences like watching their telly through their telly. Of course PC VOD has been a big success. And consumers feel empowered and excited by the simple idea that they can watch what they want, when they want it. But the big user ﬁgures hide the fact that most consumers don’t watch PC VOD that ofen, or explore it beyond seeking out the programme they missed last night. Our research has always suggested that the biggest barrier to wider and more frequent use of VOD is the screen. Put it on TV, and VOD takes oﬀ – as the likes of Virgin Media have demonstrated. 22

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I’ll leave you to debate who’s going to ‘own’ this, but here’s what we know about mainstream audiences. (See above) -­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐-­‐ TV interfaces rarely reﬂected this un6l now. They categorised content along distribu6on lines: broadcast, hard disk, “video on demand”, typically all in diﬀerent places. So it’s very interes6ng to see Virgin Media’s new TiVo box and the eventual YouView product oﬀering a far more integrated gateway to content. Which brings us to our next sec6on…. 23

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Content is s6ll king. In fact consumers have access to a greater range of quality video and audio content than at any 6me before. But increased choice also brings problems, and we regularly encounter consumers experiencing the so-­‐called paradox of choice (i.e. the more stuﬀ that’s available to me, the less I can ﬁnd something I want to watch.) So, ‘ﬁndability’ is now one of the services to which consumers a_ach the greatest value. It’s easy to imagine that Google already does this job perfectly well, but mainstream audiences are generally horriﬁed by the idea that the future EPG could resemble a big search box. A decade afer Amazon launched intelligent recommenda6on, this service is s6ll felt by by consumers to have no real equal in audio and video programmes. (A couple of years ago, Neblix went as far as to award a million dollar prize to the creator of a recommenda6on algorithm that could increase the accuracy of their recommenda6ons.) If ever there was an area of technology where consumers feel they are ahead of providers, this is it. And there are s6ll a remarkable number of barriers to mainstream consumers ﬁnding the right stuﬀ to watch at a 6me that suits them. RIGHTS: Not so much rights per se, but the ostensibly arbitrary way in which they are applied. While content owners ﬁght to protect their tradi6onal revenue streams, they may be pushing otherwise law-­‐abiding audiences towards illegal providers. 25

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We’ve talked a lot about the enduring values of the living room and the living room screen. But no-­‐one can deny that there has been a major shif in the way that some consumers watch TV. With the gradual creep of mobiles, laptops and now tablets into the living room, more and more viewers are connected to others while watching TV, or interac6ng with the originators or stars of the programmes they watch. 26

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A lot of dual screen ac6vity is taking place in the living room. (See examples above) 27

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And increasingly viewers are engaging with the shows they watch, either directly or indirectly. (Stats above.) 28

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Tablets, as they become a more familiar site in living rooms, are likely to fuel a further increase in dual screen behaviour, as they are more socially acceptable than laptops in a shared viewing environment; easier to spontaneously pick up; more comfortable to sit with; easier to share. And connected TV experiences, whether delivered through Xbox Live, YouView, or internet-­‐enabled TVs, will enhance broadcast content, and enable audience interac6ons in ways that the red bu_on has barely explored. But interac6ng with the TV is not new. From the ﬁrst phone-­‐ins in the 1960s, to email interac6on in the 90s, to red bu_on interac6vity before the turn of the millennium, the same rule applies now as it has for many years: The best and most successful services will be those that fulﬁl exis6ng viewer needs be_er – whether it’s shou6ng at contestants on the Appren6ce, guessing the answers in game shows, or scrabbling to ﬁnd a pen and paper to write down a recipe, there’s nothing new about interac6on with the TV. But in the next few years we’ll see it evolve in fascina6ng new ways. 29

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We’ve talked about the core values that determine the success of failure of services on diﬀerent screens. We’ve looked at the opportuni6es to add real consumer value by helping people to ﬁnd more of the stuﬀ they like. And we’ve looked at the poten6al for interac6on with the TV screen. But all of this is underpinned by two recurrent golden rules…. 30

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Thousands of column inches have been wri_en in the past fortnight about the things we can learn from Steve Jobs, and I certainly won’t be the only person to reference him today. And it’s slightly ironic for me to be referencing a man who was vehemently opposed to consumer research. But Steve Jobs has taught everyone that the connected services that gain real mainstream support are those that deliver a really simple and intui6ve user experience. And then you need to tell people all about the beneﬁts they will derive from using it. It’s so simple, but so ofen overlooked. 31